Avoidable deaths of at least seven babies at NHS trust where midwives 'couldn't be bothered'

Mothers said their children had died because midwives at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS trust “couldn’t be bothered” - www.alamy.com

An investigation has been ordered into the avoidable deaths of at least seven babies at one NHS trust.

Mothers said their children had died because midwives “couldn’t be bothered” to fulfil basic monitoring tasks, or to act on warnings that babies were in danger.

The Health Secretary has ordered an investigation into a string of deaths at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS trust.

A failure to properly monitor the baby was a factor in five of the deaths, coroners have found.

In total nine babies died between September 2014 and May 2016, the BBC reported.

Seven were found to be avoidable, while two more were never properly investigated, families say.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt Credit: PA

Many of the avoidable deaths involve a failure to properly monitor heart rates.

Last night safety campaigner James Titcombe, whose child died in the Morecambe Bay maternity scandal, in 2008, said the disclosures suggested history was being repeated, with the NHS failing to learn crucial lessons.

The avoidable deaths which are known about between 2014 and 2016 involve:

Ella and Lola Greene - 2014. The twins were stillborn after the trust failed to properly read and interpret their heart rates

Oliver Smale - 2015. He died after his shoulders became stuck during a natural birth after his mother was refused a y Caesarean section

Kye Hall - 2015. His death was "caused or contributed" to by the trust, said the coroner, who failed to classify his mother as a high risk pregnancy or to listen to his heart beat

Ivy Morris - 2016. Ivy was born 10 days after Graham but died four months later in May 2016. The coroner ruled her death could have been prevented if appropriate monitoring of the heart rate had taken place during labour

Pippa Griffiths - 2016. An inquest concluded one-day old Pippa's death could have been prevented if an infection had been spotted earlier

Families have raised questions about two further deaths over the period. They say there was no investigation into the death of Jack Stephen Burn in 2015, who died within days of Oliver Smale, or of Sophiya Hotchkiss in 2014.

The same trust saw the avoidable death of a baby in 2013. The coroner concluded Jenson Christopher Barnett's death could have been avoided if forceps delivery or Caesarean section had taken place.

Jeremy Hunt has now asked NHS England and NHS Improvement to review a series of deaths and other incidents at the trust, to ensure they were properly investigated.

Kelly Jones, said her daughters Ella and Lola were stillborn in September 2014 because midwives “couldn’t be bothered to do their job” and failed to listen to her warnings.

The mother of two said she repeatedly told staff that she was in pain and needed proper assessment.

But medics failed to act in time. A letter from the trust says their investiagion found “both babies had died from severe hypoxic ischemia (oxygen starvation to the brain) contributed to by delay in recognising deterioration in the foetal heart traces and missed opportunites for earlier delivery.”

Two months later, Kyle Hall died aged just four days. An inquest found the failure to listen to his heart rate contributed to the death.

Four months on, Graham Scott Holmes-Smith was born stillborn. The trust later acknowledged that the baby would have been likely to have been born alive if his heart rate had been properly monitored. The same failing was implicated in the death of Ivy Morris in May 2016.

Her mother, Tamsin said that if the trust had learned from earlier failings, her daughter would be alive today.

The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust delivers about 4,700 babies each year.

Its maternity services were severely criticised last year in an official report following the death of baby Kate Stanton-Davies in 2009.

It took seven years for an investigation into the death which established that the trust’s failings contributed to their daughter's death.

The report found a "lack of a safety culture" at the trust in 2009, saying the trust had not held any staff accountable for the failures, nor learned lessons.

A separate analysis of all NHS trusts in England last year rated Shrewsbury and Telford as one of the worst in the country when it came to learning from mistakes and incidents.

Last night James Titcombe, who uncovered a string of deaths and an attempted cover-up at Morecambe Bay, after the death of his baby son Joshuan in 2008, said the situation at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital trust appeared to show clear parallels with the first scandal.

He accused the trust of pushing women to a natural birth when it was not safe, and of failing to learn from repeated mistakes.

The trust said it had made improvements and that its mortality rates are in line with the national average.

Dr Edwin Borman, medical director, said: "When I look at the perinatal mortality rate at our trust compared to the rest of the NHS, we are at an equivalent level to the rest of the country," he said.

"In the case of foetal heart rate monitoring, we have identified a number of cases where learning has not been fully implemented. We've put systems in place to make improvements.

The trust has asked anyone concerned about their maternity services to contact them on 01743 261691.